


five times crowley threw aziraphale up against a wall and one time it was the other way around

by eaglesflying



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 5+1 Things, First Kiss, First Time, Historical References, M/M, Making an Effort (Good Omens), soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-05-28 05:26:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19387417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eaglesflying/pseuds/eaglesflying
Summary: “Shut it! I'm a demon, I'm not nice! I'm never nice. Nice is a four-letter word...”The fourth time it happened, it felt so familiar it was like a routine now.For the most part, the angel just looked a bit bored.





	1. 79 AD

**Author's Note:**

> My love letter to the GO fandom. You are awesome! All of you!  
> Enjoy! :)

1.

It was a few decades later after they’d watched the carpenter’s son bled out on a cross.

He wasn’t surprised at all to spot the angel there, holding his arms up and open, talking gently to a panicked brown horse, whose neigh drew yellow eyes toward that corner of the town’s square. Crowley’s heart did a cheerful little dance, then sank like a stone.

He put down the bucket of warm ashy water he was holding and sauntered casually toward the angel.

“Aziraphale.”

“Craw- Crowley! My goodness. Unusual weather for this time of year isn’t it?” The angel gave him a wide-eyed glance, a little out of breath, his left hand stroking soothingly up and down between the mare’s dark eyes.

“Haven’t noticed.” Crowley positioned himself as far away from the animal as possible. He never liked them, ugly hard-hoofed buggers. “Thought you were still in Rome cleaning up Vespasian’s mess.”

“Ah yes…he died a few months ago, poor man. Heard some unusual things about the mountain, thought I’d nip around to have a look.” Aziraphale turned to face Crowley, his lips pressed into a nervous line. “Have you heard anything from… your lot, maybe?”

“What do you mean?” Crowley’s heart sank further downwards and came to a rest around his toes. A family of terrified mice suddenly shot by between their sandalled feet. They both looked down.

“This, I mean, everything. Scared animals, earthquakes, hot rains…”

Crowley swallowed down a warm puff of metallic air and forced himself to meet the angel’s eyes. “No idea, came here mainly for the wine. I’m leaving soon anyway, want to see this whole business with the new emperor, Titus is it? Bet he’s more interesting than his old man…”

Aziraphale gave him a curious look. Crowley scratched his head, irritated with himself.

“Care to join me? Head back to Rome I mean…”

The horse suddenly leaped forward, dangerously missing Crowley’s toes, where his heart was. It galloped down the dirt road, leaving behind a red dusty mist.

“Oh bother! He was telling me about the…” Aziraphale disappeared with a flutter of wings.

Crowley let out a frustrated groan. He stood there for a bit, watching a few people passing through the square in a hurry. They rarely came out of the house these days, scared of all the snakes slithering around. As if a roof will protect them. He closed his eyes, blessed for a whole minute, and headed toward the mountain.

Three days later Crowley found Aziraphale in an alley, trying to create a miniature rain cloud with his hands. It hung a meter or so above their heads and gave a pathetic cough, splashed down a few cool drops.

“Why are you still here?” Crowley raised his voice in order to be heard over the roaring earth, the scathing wind.

Aziraphale let his arms drop. “You lied to me.” His voice was soft. Crowley heard every bit of wavering.

“We need to leave! Now! There’s nothing you can do. It’s happening today.” Crowley shouted urgently and raised his hand. It never landed on the angel’s shoulder, it just hovered.

“It’s your side isn’t it? You lied to me so I wouldn’t have the chance to stop it.”

“You ssstupid…listen! This is Satan himself, a thousand you plus a thousand me couldn’t stop it. My order was just to observe and check the progress…we need to get out of here!”

Crowley dodged something falling out of the sky. It was a dead pigeon. He sucked in a breath and put his hand on Aziraphale’s sooted elbow.

The angel took a violent step back and stared at him with red-rimmed eyes, his face dirty and tear-streaked. “They said not to do anything. Heaven is not doing anything Crowley! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Suddenly he couldn’t stand a second of it any more. The ground shuddering, burning sand raining down on their heads, the smell of sulphur and ash so strong it’s almost tangible. And in the center of it all, _him_.

Crowley grabbed a fistful of Aziraphale’s toga and slammed him against the red dirt wall.

“I didn’t tell you becaussse you’d rather burn in a big ball of flame than leave!”

The flash of fear in those grey blue eyes was like a bucket of cold water. Crowley blinked and suddenly felt dizzy. He let go of him and staggered a step backwards.

Aziraphale pulled himself immediately away from the wall. A pained whimper escaped.

Crowley froze.

He lifted a hand slowly. The wall was burning hot.

(Though it actually cooled down a little from the shock of a body pressed against it. It hasn't had anybody pressed against it since last week.)

A deep rumble came from the distance. So low and dark and ancient like something just woke up from a million years of slumber.

“Come on angel.” He couldn’t even find the energy to hide the pleading in his voice. Aziraphale’s lips trembled. But he moved a bit closer to Crowley.

“I’m sorry.” Crowley carefully snaked a few cool fingers on the small patch of red skin back of the angel’s neck where toga couldn’t protect. Aziraphale flinched but then slowly leaned toward Crowley’s arm, too heartbroken to say a single word.

They left for Rome, to watch the coronation of the new emperor. And Pompeii burned.


	2. 1447

2.

It was funny. Crowley couldn’t seem to stop laughing for a good minute because it’s just so, so silly.

Silly human beings and their silly little thing called superstition.

Aziraphale gave him an undignified look, and took a sip from his delicate clay cup with its delicate clay saucer.

Ever since the human race stumbled upon a kind of greenish beverage by boiling a pot of water near some shrubbery on a windy day, the angel has taken an enormous liking to it. So much so that he opened up a small establishment between the baker and the fishmonger on the high street, a couple of hundred years before tea house was ever invented, before the drink itself has ever gotten that popular.

“This is not funny, Crowley.” The angel said it with an air of an exaggerated owl and pouted.

“The whole village now believes you are a witch? Oh no, not funny at all.” Crowley let loose another snigger, and manifested some Scandinavian mead into his tea cup.

“I did nothing but recommend an herb tea for the blacksmith’s missus. Poor thing, having had that terrible cough for three whole weeks. It wasn’t even a miracle! And now the cat won’t stop showing up…and there’s you on top of it all, a snake-eyed Franciscan monk out of nowhere, drinking tea here everyday for the past week…”

“Is this not a tea house then?” Crowley purred.

“We’re not calling it a tea house!” Aziraphale fluttered his hands. “And how the heaven did you even become a monk? Does holy ground not burn your feet or something?”

“Not the church of the crowd I'm hanging with…funnily enough.” Crowley stretched himself and pushed the black hood of his black-hooded robe back. Aziraphale stared at his hair, or rather, that spot where his hair should be. You’d think the angel would be used to it by now.

Crowley coughed once, because Crowley _does not_ blush. It’s a principle thing.

“Just a job really, have to corrupt someone high up in the order.”

He leaned forward across the table and narrowed his eyes.

“Nice try changing the subject, angel. So, what are they gonna do to you, huh? What are the policies regarding witches in this area anyway?”

“Ah…you know, the usual fire and stuff.” Aziraphale smiled nervously. “Or is it water? Can’t remember…dunk them to see if they float or something…”

Crowley snorted. “Can’t you just miracle them into ignoring you?”

“If it’s just a handful of people, then yes, but when it’s in the scale of a few hundred, I’ll have to file a request to Gabriel. It will take weeks!”

Aziraphale gave Crowley a pointed look.“Ever since you arrived, I’ve been so busy thwarting your not-even-that impressive wiles to notice until it’s too late, and now the rumour has already spread across town ––”

“Relocating cows is _wickedly_ impressive I’ll have you know…” muttered Crowley.

A black cat jumped on Aziraphale’s lap suddenly, meowing a little.

Technically, people of that day and age don’t really care for keeping animals just for the sake of it. But then, the cat was a rather progressive individual and decided to adopt Aziraphale – the owner of a place where people drink tea which isn’t called a tea house – as its care-taker, and sometimes, its beard for the Witch’s Cat membership card.

(It’s more like a reputation, or, an _aura_ if you will, than an actual card.)

Aziraphale scratched the cat’s ears compliantly. Crowley grinned at the pair.

“Say that I help you with this one, maybe you can return it by pushing things along a bit for my order job? I’m so sick of all this monk-y shite. The food is _just_ terrible.”

The angel opened his mouth hesitantly ––

Someone banged at the door.

Crowley sensed twenty-something very paranoid, very narrow-minded souls outside, all presumably carrying torches and pitchforks. How creative.

Aziraphale’s eyes widened.

“Do something, Crowley!”

Crowley stood up and dragged the angel toward one of the shelves for clay tea pots and positioned them in a shadowy spot behind it. He waved a hand, the front door clicked open.

Aziraphale gasped and started to say something. In one impressively limber move, Crowley pressed hard against the angel, keeping him trapped between the shelf and his own body, and put a hand over his mouth.

(The shelf was really surprised to learn that it functioned actually quite well as a wall in this particular circumstance. They say multi-tasking is a virtue. Who knew? thought the shelf, quietly proud of itself.)

A group of suspicious farmers entered the shop. They were immediately stunned by the state of it: empty, abandoned, dust and cobweb everywhere, a black cat peeked out from a dark corner, hissing. A few brave ones went around the back, finding nothing but more dust bunnies and three dead rats.

Behind the shelf, Crowley’s hand has not moved one inch, and Aziraphale kept breathing through it, little puffs of warm air tickling his fingers. In and out. In and out. Crowley gritted his teeth. Why the hell does he do that? It’s not like he has to breathe! His hand pressed down a bit harder. He felt Aziraphale’s lips parted out of reflex, a little parched and warm and trembling and soft and _angel_.

The farmers were suddenly very confused by the appearance of a rusted iron pot in the middle of the room, which for some reason they had all just ignored a minute ago. One of them raised the heavy lid. Inside, a snot-green liquid was bubbling with bits and pieces floating about.

When it finally registered what kind of bits and pieces they were, people let out a few horrified squeaks and hurried outside quickly in a big swarm.

Crowley took a step back, his fingertips brushed the angel’s chin.

Aziraphale let out a huge breath which he didn’t need at all and knocked his head against one of the teapots while leaning back.

“Now, what did you do?” Blue eyes stared at him curiously.

Crowley let out a breath he didn’t need as well and tried to slow down his equally useless, traitorous heart.

“Nothing, just a little witchcraft of my own.”


	3. 1941

3.

“Lift home?”

They picked up a case of 1917 Château Pétrus from a non-communal bunker in the city, whose night guard’s mother Crowley had known before the war, and drove on toward Soho.

The chilling night air of London was brimmed with the stunk of burning smoke and the echo of air raid siren. The Bentley slid through all of it like a knife through water. They didn’t speak on the way home.

A couple of hours later, as the familiar stripe of warmth pressed against him from chest to knee, Crowley felt a very subtle weight in his chest lifted all of a sudden – it’d first come around about eighty years ago and had settled down there discreetly ever since.

Must be the alcohol, he mused. Haven’t had a proper French Merlot for a while.

It all started with the wine. (Doesn’t every story?)

After all the books were tucked safely back to where they belong on the prophecy-and-medieval-demonology shelf, Aziraphale uncorked the first bottle with a professional ease that came from centuries of practice, and poured them each a glass.

Their eyes met over the wine Aziraphale was handing over to Crowley. The angel seemed a little nervous, but mainly happy.

“So, what have you been up to all these years?”

Crowley looked at him for a long, long time. Aziraphale held his gaze, steadily.

“You know, this and that… Helped invented the automobile. Started the last war accidentally. The usual.”

He nodded solemnly. For a while, neither of them said anything.

“I’ve missed you.” Aziraphale blurted out suddenly, one tiny sentence thrown into the silence like a pebble breaking the surface of an icy lake. The angel started to panic visibly even before the last syllable departed from his lips. He made some embarrassed vague noises, along with some embarrassed vague hand gestures, his soft face flushed like being under the sun for too long.

(“Well I mean… a worthy component… you know, I mean… it’s not boring when you…what I’m trying to say is…err…do you…”)

Crowley felt something inside him clenched into a little ball of misery tinged with hope and decided to save Aziraphale from a slow death of drowning in embarrassment. He gulped down the whole glass of wine, draped himself smoothly across the familiar tartan sofa ( _his_ sofa), one hand stretching out for the bottle on the side table, and drawled most casually.

“Let me tell you about the time Ferdinand and I went bear hunting in the Bohemian forest.”

Three bottles and thirty-three stories later, Crowley was very, very pissed, in every sense of the word.

Aziraphale was bubbling on about some _absolutely exquisite_ performance of Schubert’s C major string quintet from 1938. Crowley let himself drift in the tide of his soft voice and _fumed_ quietly.

How dare he to say something like that. After all those years without a single word.

(And how dare Crowley’s heart to want to say it right back, along the lines of I miss you too I’m sorry please will you take me back.)

At some point, the angel stood up to get the recording of said performance and the gramophone (“Another great invention of the century!”). Crowley lifted himself from the sofa like a provoked cobra bolting upright and slithered behind Aziraphale to the back of the shop.

He must have blacked out a bit then, because the next thing he knew, he was pressing against Aziraphale from chest to knee with the angel’s back to a wall. _Yet again_.

Aziraphale was tense and a little confused. His hands clutching a vinyl record in the tiny space between their bodies. His eyes were so big, but without a trace of fear.

Crowley felt his blood boiling. “I could do thingsssss to you.”

Aziraphale licked his lips and blinked.

And suddenly, like someone flipped over a switch, he relaxed visibly and settled down there between the wall and Crowley with a contented sigh.

Crowley narrowed his eyes and pressed a bit harder.

The angel laughed a happy little laugh, a puff of warm air hitting Crowley right in the face.

“Yes I suppose you could, dear boy. But let me play you some Schubert first?”

He pushed back gently and slipped away under Crowley’s arms, leaving him staring at an empty wall. There were big ugly windmills on the wallpaper. It was one of the inventions Crowley wasn’t particularly proud of. Wallpapers.

The wall stared back mockingly.

Crowley ran a hand across his bare face (Where the hell did he put down his glasses?) and went to join the angel in the front room.

He fell asleep on the sofa during the second movement.

It has since then become their drinking music.

(Good ol' Franzie was very proud of himself when he got wind of it and sent Crowley a signed manuscript from hell.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out Schubert's string quintet in C major, the third movement was what they were drinking to in the show. The distorted drunk version made me laugh so much.


	4. 2 days before the end of the world

4\. 

“You know, Crowley, I’ve always said that deep down you really are quite a nice…”

“Shut it! I’m a demon. I’m not nice. I’m never nice. Nice is a four-letter word…”

The fourth time it happened, it felt so familiar it was like a routine now.

For the most part, the angel just looked a bit bored.

Crowley should be deeply embarrassed by how his threat (and a physical one at that!) was received and tolerated like being poked by a soft cushion made of dandelions and baby duck feathers.

For the most part, he wasn’t.

In fact, Crowley was rather enjoying the warmth, the closeness and a bit of theatricality on his part, like how he would enjoy an angel cake with a cherry on top, right until some woman came and ruined the moment.

If both of them looked a bit disappointed by the interruption, it could only be disappointment of the Anti-Christ’s missing status, the upcoming End of Time and the general darkness, or goodness in the world, depends on which side you are talking about.

(Equally if not more disappointed was the wall, who was just as bored as you would expect of a retired Satanic hospital wall. It had been expecting some hot-and-steamy action this whole time, sportingly cheering them on, like people did in the good old Shakespearean days.)


	5. sometime after the end of the world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the lovely comments! It was so much fun to write :D

5.

The first day of the rest of their life, they tricked heaven and hell into leaving them alone for the foreseeable, well, eternity.

The second day of the rest of their life, they still haven’t got a clue what to do with that eternity at hand, so they went to five different parks and fed a lot of ducks.

For the first time ever, Aziraphale and Crowley don’t really need to find an excuse to be around each other anymore, so they did just that, without any intention to stop, or to point out the fact that neither of them has allowed the other to leave their sight for a second ever since it all ended.

The point is, there needn’t be a point anymore.

And Crowley was terrified.

They dined and drove around in the Bentley and went for walks and talked and talked and talked, never about anything too concrete, almost always about the past.

It’s easier to talk about. The past. After all, there were six-millennia’s worth of endless unshared stories between their sporadic meetings, and now, endless time to share them.

Sometimes they don’t speak. It was in one of those moments when Crowley got really terrified.

(It was in one of those moments when there was nothing to distract him from the aching _need_ to do something – to shout, to kiss, to hold him in his arms, to hold him down, to fuck him –– )

Each time, Crowley squeezed his eyes shut behind his lenses and stopped breathing until one of them started talking again. He had thought it might be only an inconvenient aftermath of almost losing everything (of almost losing Aziraphale), but it has been days and it’s clearly not going away ––

The fact that it was something he would allow himself to even think about terrified the shit out of him.

But there wasn’t a thing Crowley could do about it. So fuck that.

Sometime after the end of the world, they were walking out of the National Gallery to where the Bentley was parked. Crowley couldn’t even remember where they were heading to next, but Aziraphale tugged on his arm softly. He turned to him immediately, because he cannot do anything other than what his terrified heart told him to do these days.

Aziraphale had an expression which Crowley hasn’t seen for a few centuries. His eyes were more grey than blue.

“William Turner always reminds me of that colourful stripe of gas and dust you added between Rigil Kentaurus and Toliman.”

There weren’t as many people then, five millennia ago, and it got awfully boring one day, so they went up to the stars, and Crowley created the three suns of Alpha Centauri while Aziraphale watched on.

Crowley knew where this was going. Crowley had been waiting for this. His heart hammered painfully in his ribcage.

“To imagine all of this…” –– a wave of hand –– “Gone!” –– a desperate gasp of air –– “Whydoes it have to be like this?”

“Like what angel?”

“Why does it always come down to a choice between the impossibles?”

“Is it really that impossible?” Crowley croaked, a little too desperately.

Aziraphale looked at him for a century, the silence shone and burned like a dying star. Crowley felt like he’s going to break into a thousand pieces any moment now, and Aziraphale was shaking a little and ––

“I guess it’s not anymore.”

Crowley stopped breathing and watched with awe and something else as Aziraphale stepped bravely towards him and carefully took Crowley’s hand in his. Right in the middle of the Trafalgar Square.

And then they were suddenly in the back of the bookshop. Crowley wasn’t sure which one of them did that, but that’s not really important because the angel was still there, closer than ever, their fingers warm and entwined.

It was then Crowley finally knew it was going to happen. He still didn’t understand any of it, but he knew _it is happening, right here, right now_. A wave of calmness and warmth spread all over him, and he took off his glasses with his free hand.

Aziraphale looked up at him so openly and gently it nearly broke him in half.

He breathed and moved a bit closer, his fingertips rested against Aziraphale’s breastbone, not pushing, barely touching. But the angel went softly along and leaned backwards until the wall touched his back. This, _this_ was familiar to them both.

Crowley lifted his hand in an excruciatingly slow motion, up and up, to cup his cheek. Thumb stroking a small circle there. He stopped for a moment and looked into Aziraphale’s eyes. The angel gave his other hand a little squeeze, so Crowley leaned down and kissed him. It might be the closest he’ll ever come to dying.

It felt like an eternity, how much time Crowley spent that day kissing Aziraphale against a very smug wall in the back of the bookshop. And he might have just figured out what to do with the real one that awaits them.


	6. sometime after their first snog

+1.

It took Crowley eight years and six months to finally convince Aziraphale that windmills weren’t really trending anymore as wallpaper patterns. So in the spring of 1950, the back wall of the bookshop was at long last repainted, or rather, _reimagined_ into a dark warm amber monochrome, which has the ability to change its shade subtly in accordance with the owner’s mood.

Right now, the wall was bright pink.

Crowley panted against Aziraphale’s neck, one of his hand buried inside short white curls, the other still cupping and stroking the angel’s lovely, lovely face.

Aziraphale looked a little dazed, lips red and swollen, but somehow he wasn’t coming apart at the seam like Crowley was right now, which was _infuriating_. He was supposed to be the experienced one, not a pathetic trembling mess for earth’s sake.

Crowley dived in for another kiss, this time with more tongues and sucking and even a little bit of biting, yet Aziraphale just happily took them all in without even appearing to be out of breath. What Crowley wanted to see was him squirming and moaning and falling apart, but the angel only hummed and sighed appreciatively like he just had a particularly delicious piece of Sashimi.

This wasn’t right.

Crowley pulled away a little and narrowed his eyes.

“Have you done this before angel?”

“Of course not my dear! What are you even…” Aziraphale looked appalled.

Crowley frowned, “Then why are you like all unaffected and…” He gestured up and down.

“Wait a minute…” Something occurred to Crowley. He snaked a hand down between the angel’s legs.

“You are not making an effort!”

Aziraphale flushed. “Well, I…”

“But I thought you _always_ make an effort. You said it makes you understand the humans better!” Crowley couldn’t even mask the hurt in his voice.

“Yes! No, I mean…” Aziraphale put a hand around Crowley’s neck and made him meet his eyes. “Do you remember the books?”

“What books?”

“1941, the Blitz, you saved me from those Nazis, and we had some lovely Merlot.” Aziraphale swallowed and blushed a deeper red. “Well, I stopped making an effort around you since that night.”

Crowley’s brain provided him with a few contorted images of the bookshop, a drunken debate about Schubert, and some ugly fat-arsed windmills.

And Aziraphale’s surprised face. Blue eyes so wide. Those soft lips so, so close.

“You what?”

“You were acting weird! And… and I didn’t know what to do. Things didn’t feel right…”

Crowley swallowed hard and captured one of Aziraphale’s fluttering hands.

“You mean, you felt something that night. Something… unthinkable _then_?”

Aziraphale nodded nervously.

“I thought it would make me fall.”

It was only a hoarse whisper, but it pierced through Crowley like an arrow. Aziraphale squeezed his hand urgently.

“But I know what it is now. I see it clearly. Nothing that true could make me fall.”

“Are you sure?” Crowley forgot how to breath.

“Yes. Yes! I… I just need a bit more time to convince my body to make an effort… around you…”

Crowley couldn’t help but pressed a long, desperate kiss on his cheek. It felt somehow more intimate than their snogs before which was frightening as heaven.

“Take all the time you need, angel.”

The moment it happened, Crowley felt the air around them sizzled. Aziraphale’s eyes widened, his pupils grew larger and darker. His lips parted, and a tiny sweet sound came out which turned Crowley into a puddle of want and need. All of a sudden there were hands grabbing at him, and then they were both turning and spinning and a solid, heavenly weight pressed hard into him until his back hit the now dark rose-coloured wall.

Crowley felt so turned on he could discorporate right there between the wall and Aziraphale, if it didn’t also mean he’d miss what’s coming next.

Aziraphale didn’t stop pushing into him even though there was nowhere for them to go. He was shaking so hard it made Crowley shake along. The way he pressed his face into the crook of Crowley’s neck, the way his trembling hands balled around Crowley’s clothes, the way he was trying to melt into Crowley because it was still not close enough, all of it made Crowley’s heart ache with something too un-demonic to say it out loud.

He tightened his arms around Aziraphale, fingers tracing small circles on his scalp, trying to sooth the out-of-breath, slightly panicking angel, who made a soft noise between a sob and a moan. Crowley shushed and rocked him a little.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. I’ve got you, angel.”

They stayed like that for a while, until Aziraphale shifted his hips just so and suddenly they were both groaning. Crowley couldn’t hold himself back anymore, so he snapped his fingers and dragged the angel through the corridor toward the newly manifested bedroom with its king size four poster bed. The newly manifested door slammed shut behind them.

They say what happens behind closed doors, no one will be the wiser. But at some point later that night, all of the walls in the bookshop turned into an array of rainbow colours. And they all felt pretty satisfied with themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all the comments and kudos, it was such a blast to write!  
> The last chapter got out of hand and flirted briefly with the more smutty area. Who knows, maybe one day I will try it out. ;)


End file.
